The Soldier's Wife - songs of untold stories
- 30 Jul 2015
Deb Suckling shares her journey as a song writer in capturing the heartfelt experiences of what it means to be a soldier’s wife...
The Soldier’s Wife project began as a seed of an idea in late 2013.
I had recently left full-time work after seven years to look after my young family and was at home full-time running our record label and taking on the occasional project. As an artist I was performing very little, but I still wanted to be creative and continue songwriting and recording. I had recently completed another community project working with long-term homeless called the Songs of Roma House and had loved every second of it.
I have wonderful neighbours, Jack and Marie, who are in their nineties and we have lived next door for 17 years. Marie cares for her Jack and is one of the most stoic, energetic women I have ever met. We chat every day over the fence while we hang out our washing and my children play in the garden. Jack served in WWII in New Guinea and Marie’s father was in the first landing at Gallipoli.
It was while talking to Marie, and after a recent spate of deaths in Afghanistan of young Australian men, that I thought about the idea of talking to soldiers’ wives. Their stories are rarely ever seen or heard publicly and I started thinking more and more about these women. Not only do they deal with the long absences of their partners and the constant stress of having a partner in areas of conflict, they are also left to sole parent and can be moved from state to state – depending on where their partners are deployed. And of course they need to deal with the fact their partner may be killed, wounded or suffer serious post-traumatic stress, depression or anxiety from their experiences in conflict zones.
I had no previous contact with any Defence Department personnel and very little idea of where to start – but I submitted a grant application for new work to the Australia Council with the concept – asked some of my favourite female songwriter friends if they would be interested in the project – and several months later we were successful getting a small grant to write some songs. I immediately called Legacy with the idea and they loved it and asked us to come and meet some of the women from the Laurel Club – a group of widows who meet weekly whose partners served in conflicts from World War II to Vietnam. We were terrified! But after a few weeks and lots of cups of tea they opened up to us.
That was just over 12 months ago. In 12 months we have met more than 100 women across Queensland. We have written dozens of songs and the full-length album will be released later this year. We have performed the songs and told their stories at Woodford Folk Festival, the Brisbane Powerhouse, Anzac ceremonies, Remembrance Day and in August we perform at the Sydney Opera House and the Canberra Street Theatre. We visit Tasmania later in the year and are hoping to spend more time in regional Queensland in 2016, collecting more stories.
The impact for both the ten songwriters and the wives involved is often profoundly emotional. We cry, we laugh, we have a glass of wine or a cup of tea and sometimes just chat. Sometimes the wives want to contribute lyrics to the songs; sometimes they prefer us to write their story into song using our own words. It is all about giving these women an outlet to share their stories and to share their fear, their concern, their loss and often for them it is easier to talk to us as we are complete strangers.
For them it is therapeutic in many senses – we were in Townsville with a group of young wives with young families the day before Anzac Day this year and performed the show and they explained: “We never thought anyone gave a s*#t about us. It’s always about the men.” That was a special moment for all of us in what we were doing.
As an artist, this has been one of the most wonderful experiences I have ever had. Often being an artist is lonely, selfish work – you can also be so hard on yourself trying to create that you lose the joy of creation. Helping people tell their stories is the complete opposite – it’s collaborative, unselfish work and the wider community needs to hear these stories – they are part of our fabric of life – and songs are so accessible to everyone.
Telling these women’s stories through song has for all of us involved, made us realise their immense sacrifice, their quiet contribution, their bond with each other and most of all – the power of love for their partners that sees them through each day.
The future? We hope to showcase at the Australian Performing Arts Market (APAM) and take the show internationally in 2016. We hope to gather more stories and to share those stories. Whatever happens though, we know this has been one of those projects that has changed us all for the better.
Deb Suckling has worked within the Queensland music industry for longer than she cares to remember.
Growing up in regional Queensland, Deb started her first band at the old age of 23, but managed to go on and tour most nooks and crannies of Australia and even a few overseas performances before she fell in love with her guitarist and bred small guitar nerds. She still performs occasionally under Lucy Star Satellite. She spent a number of years cutting her teeth with indie labels FunkFolk Records and Collision Records before founding her own label SugarRush with partner Craig Spann in late 2006.
Deb was the Program Manager for state not for profit organization, QMusic, until October 2012, overseeing a number of projects including coordinating the annual Queensland Music Awards, Women In Music conference and coordinating professional development and educational workshops across regional Queensland.
In 2013, she entered the realm of artist management and now manages Sahara Beck, Tigerlilly and Jackie Marshall and is the label manager for Queensland Indigenous label Impossible Odds Records. She also produces the Long Player Sessions and Murder Ballads, The Soldier’s Wife Project and is involved in coordinating various other songwriting projects across Queensland.
Deb volunteers her time to mentor a number of Indigenous artists in Queensland and is on the panel of judges for the National Indigenous Music Awards, is a peer assessor for the Australia Council and has been invited to speak on panels and workshops across Australia.